“I’d rather be ill!”: care against the grain. A brief essay on what the Covid-19 pandemic can reveal about the craft of anthropology

Inspired by Benjaminian thinking, this essay proposes that we think about care against the grain in an attempt to denude it. The author crosscuts her experience as a caregiver during the Covid-19 pandemic with the narratives of her interlocutors in Sierra Leone (West Africa) during the Ebola epidemic (2014-2016). The intersection of these realities – an anthropologist caregiver and female Sierra Leonean caregivers – prompts the researcher to think about the craft of anthropology, considering issues such as designation, gender, race, subalternity, place of speech and the resourceful space of relationality.

Keywords
The craft of anthropology; Covid-19; Care against the grain